Angelo Savala, a 33-year-old from Los Angeles who arrived in Seattle with $20, no place to stay and years of kitchen experience, is now in FareStart and hopes one day to open his own cafe.

Angelo Savala, a 33-year-old from Los Angeles who arrived in Seattle with $20, no place to stay and years of kitchen experience, is now in FareStart and hopes one day to open his own cafe.

Photo: Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Rosie Hook is midway through FareStart's 16-week training program. At left is Krista Kelly, Front of the House trainer.

Rosie Hook is midway through FareStart's 16-week training program. At left is Krista Kelly, Front of the House trainer.

Photo: Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Nam Banh graduated in October from FareStart's program.

Nam Banh graduated in October from FareStart's program.

Photo: Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Readers Care Fund: FareStart takes them off the streets, and into the kitchen

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EDITOR'S NOTE: For more than a quarter-century, Seattle PostIntelligencer readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund drive, generating more than $5 million for local charities. Today we look at one of this year's beneficiaries: FareStart.

APPETIZER

On his first day of the 16 -week FareStart program, Angelo Savala already seemed a step ahead.

He knew clogs were a chef's best friends -- easy to step out of when hot liquids spill inconveniently. He knew what "bias cut" meant. He also knew the difference in sizes in the chef's knives that are the standard gift for every graduate of FareStart's Back of the House program, which emphasizes culinary and kitchen skills.

The program takes people off the streets, trains them and places 80 percent of those who finish in new jobs. FareStart runs several retail operations -- including a restaurant, catering service and cafes -- that fuel more than 40 percent of the revenue for its operating budget.

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Not unlike other program participants, Savala already knew his way around the kitchen. The Los Angeles native, 33, has been around burners, ovens and fryers much of his adult life.

He left San Diego in June after a bad relationship got worse and had one goal: Get to the tip of Baja. The bilingual, half-Spanish Savala hitchhiked to Cabo San Lucas, lived in a van and worked on a farm. But as an American, he found steady work hard to come by. So he decided to head back up north. This time, to Seattle -- a city he'd visited before that struck him as perfect for a fresh start.

"I had two choices: live on the streets or get in a program," he said.

He thought he'd get on a boat to Alaska and fish (or cook) and earn enough money for school tuition. With only a few college courses in his past, he chose instead to learn hands-on. But every time he wanted to get ahead, he couldn't. Not without a culinary certificate.

He found shelter at Union Gospel Mission, where he saw a flier for FareStart on a bulletin board. But another obstacle appeared. His ex-girlfriend (and mother of his 2-year-old son) wanted to try to work things out again. So over Thanksgiving, they tried. It didn't work out.

Savala ended up on a trolley to the bus terminal in downtown San Diego. He wanted to get back to Seattle. He only had $23.50 now, so he did something he hadn't done in a long time. He prayed.

I need you God.

God answered. Savala told his story to a stranger, a merchant marine, who reached into her pocket and pulled out $120 to pay his bus fare to Seattle.

He began FareStart on Dec. 5.

"You can start from scratch if you're persistent and you have some vision," Savala said. "This is a city where that can happen."

Savala's plan: Get certified, get paid as a professional baker and open up a cafe. FareStart has given him a place to live, a place to work with food without pressure and an opportunity to move to the next level.

Although some grads are bakers and chefs at local restaurants, most work for large food-service companies, cruise lines and the parks service.

"We ask our students to first commit to the 16-week program, but ultimately we are asking them to make a commitment to their lives. This commitment requires a great deal of work, and while they come a long way in 16 weeks, it's only the beginning," said Executive Director Megan Karch.

"Following graduation they get a job, an apartment and continue to work their way toward the life they choose versus the one that chooses them. Sometimes that line from point A to B is a zigzag. Our job is to minimize the distance and show our students their choices. These choices give them the power back over their own lives."

ENTRÉE

FareStart couldn't have come at a better time for Rosie Hook.

The native Seattleite, who grew up on Vashon Island, had retreated to her grandfather's house in Ballard. She tried telemarketing and stuffing envelopes. Then six weeks into a court-ordered alcohol treatment program, she heard about FareStart.

"It was either live life or be numb," said Hook, 35. "I didn't want to be numb anymore."

It's been at least 10 years since she waited on tables, but now that she's midway through the Front of the House program, it's as if she never stopped. As a woman and as a participant in the program that trains wait staff, Hook is a double rarity.

Hook has learned to memorize the menu, detail tables and multitask. For her, serving lunch to the public every day in the FareStart restaurant is a way to gain people's confidence back.

"It's been a really good transition in terms of support," she said. "This is a family of people trying to get their lives together."

After providing a stable, basic foundation, FareStart matches students with case managers who take care of counseling and job-training needs. Then FareStart's program fills in the final ingredient: providing a sense of community and belonging.

"When we have that -- that sense that someone cares about us, that someone is there as you step out and take risks -- it makes all the difference," Karch said.

DESSERT

Nam Banh graduated from FareStart in October. The next day, he started working for Faerland Terrace, a retirement community on Capitol Hill.

For 80 percent of FareStart students who finish the program, the reward is a job. But of the 200 or so students who try it every year, only half complete the program.

Banh, 38, is a man of few words. But what he lacks in speech he makes up for in smiles. The Vietnamese native came to the United States in 1982 and spent most of his time in San Francisco with his family doing construction and landscaping.

Without a high school diploma, he knew there weren't many options. He started his own business but lost it. That's what prompted him to try fishing in Alaska for a few years.

Then he saw a FareStart flier at the Bread of Life Mission.

He quickly became known as the kind of reliable guy who anticipated chefs' requests, the kind of guy who had nurses call his case manager, Susan Thompson-Oishi, from the hospital when he had an emergency appendectomy -- just to let her know why he was absent. She had to send him home when he came in the next day.

"If I want to do something, I want to do it to fullness," he said.

He loves his job now, where he cooks for Faerland's residents and does maintenance.

Banh also was Thompson-Oishi's first student to be enrolled in a pilot program with United Way that builds a matching savings account for FareStart grads' permanent housing.